Considering a new rig?

[Mutt]

Maybe try the spider platform: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2320536,00.asp

For the same amount of money the new 3 core chips seem to be giving solid gaming performance.

[Timestretch]

Funny you ask, I just bought one today. Thoughts?

1 RAIDMAX SMILODON ATX-612WBP Black 1.0mm SECC Steel ATX Mid Tower Foldout MB Computer Case With 500W Power Supply
$94.99

1 GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX All Solid Capacitor Intel Motherboard
$109.99

1 XFX PVT88PYDF4 GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card
$179.99

1 RAIDMAX QUANTUM RX-700 700W ATX12V V2.2 / EPS12V SLI Power Supply
$119.99

1 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor
$189.99

1 G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK
$119.99

1 Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
$79.99

Subtotal $894.93
Tax $0.00
UPS 3 Days $44.39
Order Total $939.32

Plus another 80$ in mail-in rebates!

I'm excited to get more than 5 FPS in Old Tarantia =)

[Mutt]

lol good all around rig timey

[Zorat]

Current games do not scale very well past two cores so a higher clocked dual core is better then a triple/quad core.

Nice setup Timey. Should serve you well and you can upgrade the GPU in about 6-12 months when NVIDIA and AMD release refined versions of their next cores.

[Timestretch]

I owe it all to Koltas.

He wasted hours of his work day to come up with this AoC tombstone-maker!

[Koltas]

Same rig I got :victory:

[Timestretch]

Now if he'll just get his GF to pay for mine too!

[Koltas]

Sorry, I'm special <3

[Mutt]

And its a good price too Timey. I built something similar in Jan and it was about 300-400 more with only a couple minor differences.

[Timestretch]

Here's how I look at it.

This rig cost me 890. Minus about 80 dollars in mail-in rebates. Minus 250$ because thats what a co-worker is going to give me for my old computer. Minus 200$ because that's how much money I would have withdrawn from the ATM to hit up the massage parlor at lunch (which I decided not to do).

Therefore, this new computer is really costing me 360$. In the immortal words of the guy from Teen Witch....TOP THAT!

[Mutt]

lol

[Spiker]

For AoC I read that people get much better FPs with 9800 series cards than 8800 series. I have an 8800GT 512 OC 640MhZ and get 20-30 FPS, but occasionally 16. I have the latest nvidia drivers too, and some of the tweaks about turning things up and down don't matter much.

That said a single 8800GT should be more than enough, and lots of people are complaining that AoC is not well coded.

I personally have never had the really low FPS some have had, with 15-16 being my lowest.

[Diraker]

I have an 8800 and at worst my fps is 33 or so. That's in the city, turning, as I load up. I have all my detail settings turned down though. I don't need shiney graphics, I do though need smooth gameplay. So my textures are set to low and medium (medium for the spell effects...I need to see them clearly for my combos). Shadows and water are disabled (as always).

Sometimes I get bugged where there is super duper lighting effects. This makes my fps drop to like 15 (at worst) which, for me, is too choppy to play. Although when this happens my weapon looks like a light saber.

[Timestretch]

To give you a bit of perspective Diraker....I drop to about 5-10 fps in major cities. When I turn around and load up..you get 33 and I get .5 to 3 fps. I swear its literally a slideshow.

Today I was running through E Mountains and I was amazed how smooth it was....and I checked the UI graph and I had 23 FPS lol.

[Aradorn]

Current games do not scale very well past two cores so a higher clocked dual core is better then a triple/quad core.

this is because the OS handles threading/switching of processes between cores. 2 cores is pleanty for 99.9999% of people out there (even games). Games will usually only run on 1 core at the time so while it is eatting up processor time on that one core the OS can use the other core for background processes. Which is why you see improved performance.

This is why when you increase to 3/4/8 cores you see minimal increases because you really arnt taxing your system that much and the OS just tosses everything off to the first available core which quickly does the work.

[Aradorn]

for more information on how multiple cores actually affect your life see -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-core_(computing)#Software_impact

[Timestretch]

Holy crap...Newegg is ridiculous.

I ordered the computer yesterday at 1pm PST. It just arrived at my office.

[Mutt]

Yea they are. I wish they would ship to Canada so I can use them.

[Timestretch]

Can you guys recommend a good, inexpensive DVD driver?

[Mutt]

whatever LG one you can find.

[Timestretch]

cool, thanks.

[Aradorn]

Liteon is really good too

[Ablate]

Never used Newegg, but NCIX has always surprised me with their delivery speeds, as far as a canadian option goes.

[Zorat]

Note for anyone buying an inexpensive gaming PC. AMD just released the 4850 which is faster then the 9800GTX and comes in at $199 and is available on NewEgg right now.

Check it:
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3338

[Forecast]

Note for anyone buying an inexpensive gaming PC. AMD just released the 4850 which is faster then the 9800GTX and comes in at $199 and is available on NewEgg right now.

Check it:
http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3338

I haven't found any performance tests, but spec-wise it's no where near faster than the 9800GTX >_> At least not when I compared them on newegg, just now.

[Mutt]

The benchmarks are in the article he linked...

[Splicer]

wtf is with the 800 stream processors anyways? Seems a bit ridiculous